Tanking feels unimportant

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Gojin

Well after what I seen on a twitch stream they should just adjust the dungeons as free for alls at this point, where just any types of roles can go in and get it done just to cut down on DPS queues. Someone queued without a tank, 3 dps one healer and cleared an expert dungeon no problem.

---

This isn't new. Heck, this isn't even unique to this game.

Whenever a group of players get to a point to where the resources for keeping the group alive in a tankless group the same or less than the resources for keeping the group alive in a group with a tank, tanks will start being excluded in content. The same goes for groups that have more than one healer. If one healer (or no healer) can keep the group alive with the same amount of resources or less, Healers will start being excluded.

It all comes down to preventing down-time and allowing most of the population to participate in content (which is usually DPS).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

But how fast do the dungeons go by in that game?

---

about the same as the dungeons here honestly. No one actually wanted to run dungeons in that game and basically did them to get a weekly value. You could argue it's similar here but it got so bad in that game they literally turned it into a single player game. The problem is when you cannot guarantee a tank and healer in the party you cannot do any interesting mechanics or even let the bosses do anything remotely approaching meaningful damage. You only think dungeons are easy now. Imagine if the monsters you can solo in this game had their hp raised about 10 times and that was it. You fight them with 4 dps and they do no more damage, if not less, than they do now and that's a dungeon boss. It was mindnumbingly stupid.

That game and GW2 taught me that even a bad implementation of the trinity is better than no trinity. It's kind of like you don't actually know what you have until it's gone. As much as I think they do need to do something with this game I'll take what we have with no changes a million times over the mess than SWTOR became.

Or, we could go the opposite direction and make Duty Finder entirely useless and implement Savage Dungeons that you can't queue up for, and those are the only dungeons that yield anything worthwhile to the player. *eyeroll* One of the reasons I quit WoW. Group Finder content is entirely useless, so why do it? I don't feel like sitting around trying to beg people to let me into PUGs. What is this, 2008?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Neat. How often is that taken advantage of? Maybe more often in savage/ex but I still fail to see how that is better than an instant press of the button with no requirement. With how predictable the timing is on attacks, what difference is there? I’d like an example or two cause I’m just not seeing it other than really long AoE animation(but even those tend to have snapshots).

Besides this is more on how to adjust the skill if Clemency was removed, something I would think most PLDs would seem to want going by this and other threads. Or we can leave Veil as is(and keep a reason to blame healers)

---

It has a benifit. Again 1 whole minute of time which means proper planning can lead to using it more in fights than other tank party mitigations because you can actually prep the thing and have it one cooldown faster than other AoEs.
Its not my fault PLDs don't take a second and actually read thier skills and think of its applications.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

It has a benifit. Again 1 whole minute of time which means proper planning can lead to using it more in fights than other tank party mitigations because you can actually prep the thing and have it one cooldown faster than other AoEs.
Its not my fault PLDs don't take a second and actually read thier skills and think of its applications.

---

That would also require you not to be healed at all during that time and for your healers to understand they shouldn’t be popping their shields for this instance, you’ll have Veil already primed.
Not my fault someone thought of one application and is acting smug about it. Pleas share more with the class of how often you get the full minute out of it.

But hey I guess Veil is balanced around that skill level and if things are balanced around that skill level, why do we have Clemency if no one at that skill level willingly seems to use it? If anything I would think this helps with the idea of “Axe Clemency and retool Veil”.

Like okay Veil is so good but how are you supposed proc it? Not with Clemency it sounds like going off some threads, that eats into your DPS.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Yorumi

Snip

---

Actually because you brought it up, I personally hold up GW2 as a reason I would prefer no Trinity than a half baked one. Back when I played it sounded like the inverse of SWTOR; bosses that hit hard, interesting mechanics and you were expected to have a certain team comp. And the Community did, just not the expected one. Back when they had the stat system(The one where you put points into a key stat and got new abilities based of said stat) it was expected to put them into Power, all of it. Didn’t matter what, all into Power. Damage Race-Rocket Tag everything cause why bother with Mechanics when you could rush damage. They’ve changed the system last time I checked in but I’ll have to ask if anyone can remember that cause I vividly recall the Power debates threads.

I see mirrors of that in this game.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Actually because you brought it up, I personally hold up GW2 as a reason I would prefer no Trinity than a half baked one. Back when I played it sounded like the inverse of SWTOR; bosses that hit hard, interesting mechanics and you were expected to have a certain team comp. And the Community did, just not the expected one. Back when they had the stat system(The one where you put points into a key stat and got new abilities based of said stat) it was expected to put them into Power, all of it. Didn’t matter what, all into Power. Damage Race-Rocket Tag everything cause why bother with Mechanics when you could rush damage. They’ve changed the system last time I checked in but I’ll have to ask if anyone can remember that cause I vividly recall the Power debates threads.

I see mirrors of that in this game.

---

You're not really wrong in that assessment, but there's a reason (and a history) for it. Back in ARR, no encounter had an "enrage" timer so to speak. Some things had a soft-enrage style situation (T1 comes to mind with the stacking power buffs, Shiva too) and other things kinda mimicked it to a certain degree (T2 with the timer) but for most content in the game, you could win via attrition if you so desired. This saw quite a bit of shake-up as time went by, as players adapted to the content in ways that SE hadn't anticipated. An early one was the prevalence of using multiple BRD's in a group, saving only one spot for a melee dps (usually MNK for the int debuff) in order to use melee LB. But the lack of enrage mechanics as we know them meant players could take a slower approach, and given the prevalence of people who played dps (thereby inflating the number of bad dps by virtue of it being the most populous role) you started to see a meta emerge where dps was excluded in favor of a safer approach.

SE nipped that in the bud via the addition of enrage mechanics, but that leads us to the meta we have today where dps beats all, since a shorter fight means fewer mechanics that can possibly kill someone. This is the line SE has to walk; every role needs to be kept relevant, and the only way to keep a dps job relevant is via it's dps. As we all saw with NIN (and earlier in HW with WAR before the removal of the SP debuff) having some kind of powerful raid utility practically guarantees a spot in the raid. SE addressed this partially via the inclusion of certain role-specific mechanics, as well as other stuff like lowered LB gain with duplicate jobs, but that didn't change the fact that a WAR could universally lower boss damage by 10% at all times, while a NIN could universally boost raid damage by 10% for ~1/6th of the fight. Those debuffs were simply so strong that you never wanted to be without them.

This presents an interesting conundrum; how do you design jobs to be unique without adding stuff to them that will overshadow other jobs of that role? That's not the only problem too. As myself and others have discussed in a variety of threads, there are certain limitations to the system that FF14 has. It's not an action-MMO like BnS or Tera or something. It's a trinity-based party-centric game where solo power is granted on the basis that it allows the completion of solo duties as needed by the story, and that's it (which, to be fair, is to be expected with a Japanese-designed game with a large social element). So arguments for solo viability go right out the window, as do any kind of massive reworks of the underlying game systems. SE has no desire to completely revamp the game - at least not at this stage in it's life cycle - and there is still a demand for more jobs to be added, which further complicates the issue.

Of course, the sad part is that all of the "flavorful" stuff is on the chopping block when you distill everything down to damage done. If it isn't a direct boost to damage in some way, then people don't care, or else they care too much (as was seen with AST when groups would sit for minutes on end waiting for that Expanded Balance with an extra Balance in the tank).

One option is to take a "DRK-like" approach to non-damage skill usage. 5.0 TBN is a great example of a tank-centric feedback loop that rewards proper usage and doesn't punish the player via "lost" damage. If Clemency were given something similar then not only would usage of the skill go up, but it wouldn't be seen as unnecessary filler. Just spitballing an idea here, but maybe using Clemency on a player would add half of the healing done to the next Confiteor, stacking up to three times (these are just general numbers) but the idea being that Clemency would then become a replacement for Holy Spirit under certain circumstances with the expectation that there would be a big payoff at the end with a skill every PLD player would normally be using anyway. You lose some damage on the front-end sure, but make it up in the back end and - if properly executed with your group - make up more overall raid damage because of a few healer GCD's that have potentially been saved. Adjust the numbers right and you can create some situations where a PLD would be better off with the usual HS spam and others where Clemency+Confiteor results in more damage.

That kind of a feedback loop would be fun, and it would (hopefully) reward on-the-spot thinking and adjustment, in addition to careful planning (i.e. only the MT and OT will be taking damage over the next few GCD's, which would be a perfect situation for an OT PLD to cover the healing on IF they had a big damage reward waiting for them at the end).

My idea isn't perfect, I know. But one thing it does have going for it is that it ticks all the necessary design boxes.
Does it maintain job uniqueness and flavor? Yes.
Does it result in a loss to damage? Not if done appropriately.
Does it further homogenize the jobs? Aside from taking some inspiration from DRK, no. It encourages a uniquely PLD-style of gameplay.
Does it require completely new system infrastructure to be created? No.

Adding similar tank-centric feedback loops would be a good start, but how to go about doing that I can't say. WHM has an excellent one with the Blood Lily system, and while simple the TBN feedback loop is useful, powerful, and encourages the player to think about more carefully about how they approach it's use as a tank. In a perfect world, I'd see more suggestions like this. Not just about the feedback loop, but about not only maintaining but emphasizing job uniqueness instead of the bland "like a dps but tankier" approach that crops up so much. It's possible to reward non-damage actions in meaningful ways that engage players in a way that buffing potencies never will. As jaded as I can be sometimes, I know these forums have the capability to innovate some amazing stuff.

edit: amended for clarity RE: which version of TBN

@Quor

Are you talking about Stormblood TBN or Shadowbringers TBN? Because those are 2 VERY DIFFERENT skills...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

That would also require you not to be healed at all during that time and for your healers to understand they shouldn’t be popping their shields for this instance, you’ll have Veil already primed.
Not my fault someone thought of one application and is acting smug about it. Pleas share more with the class of how often you get the full minute out of it.

But hey I guess Veil is balanced around that skill level and if things are balanced around that skill level, why do we have Clemency if no one at that skill level willingly seems to use it? If anything I would think this helps with the idea of “Axe Clemency and retool Veil”.

Like okay Veil is so good but how are you supposed proc it? Not with Clemency it sounds like going off some threads, that eats into your DPS.

---

What part about healer shields for the party do you not understand???? Those will proc it, healer AoE's will proc it. Just prep use it before the raid wide AoE or spam, decent healers will use shields for the party and would you look at that, viel is proc'd.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

What part about healer shields for the party do you not understand???? Those will proc it, healer AoE's will proc it. Just prep use it before the raid wide AoE or spam, decent healers will use shields for the party and would you look at that, viel is proc'd.

---

Shhh, don't tell him about coordination and teamplay.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

@Quor

Are you talking about Stormblood TBN or Shadowbringers TBN? Because those are 2 VERY DIFFERENT skills...

---

I figured it was obvious (since SB TBN didn't have a feedback loop) but I'm referring to ShB TBN. Where it provides a free Edge or Flood via Dark Arts if the shield gets broken.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by BarretOblivion

What part about healer shields for the party do you not understand???? Those will proc it, healer AoE's will proc it. Just prep use it before the raid wide AoE or spam, decent healers will use shields for the party and would you look at that, viel is proc'd.

---

If that's the case, why does Paladin actually need it besides every tank having some take on it. It's not the PLD's responsibility at this point, it's the Healers, so just take the skill and give it to the Healer. But hey, keep showing why you want Clemancy deleted and passing any other responsibility on to others so you can do more damage with your weak percentage now.

Not used to heal and not used to pop Veil now, what purpose do you use it for when you give both parts of that combo over to the healers?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FirstnameLastname

Shhh, don't tell him about coordination and teamplay.

---

Teamplay should be a bit of give and take, working together, not "Hey use this ability for me cause I sure as heck won't". Maybe we find a way to put some ability for another role on each of them for more teamplay.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quor

I figured it was obvious (since SB TBN didn't have a feedback loop) but I'm referring to ShB TBN. Where it provides a free Edge or Flood via Dark Arts if the shield gets broken.

---

SB TBN had feedback just not as a loop though and I thought it was fine back then.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Teamplay should be a bit of give and take, working together, not "Hey use this ability for me cause I sure as heck won't".

---

And people are working together to proc Divine Veil, as is intended.

What do you gain from trying to stay ignorant so hard?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by FirstnameLastname

And people are working together to proc Divine Veil, as is intended.

What do you gain from trying to stay ignorant so hard?

---

Really I would think the intended thing to do is either have the heal proc it, or if need be, CAST YOUR OWN HEALING SPELL.

But no your healing spell is a DPS loss from the lowest damage dealers in the game, so have the healers that do more damage than you do it.

Fine. Keep your Veil and have another reason to blame healers, like people don't have enough things to blame healers for. You'll all ready to throw a party if Clemency got deleted for your precious DPS but don't want to budge on Veil getting changed because that's would be putting the responsibility back in your corner. I'm not crazy here am I? If they decided to cut Clemancy(And bow to the DPS chasing meta we have) wouldn't it make sense to change Veil to reflect it because PLD can no longer, within their own kit, proc it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Really I would think the intended thing to do is either have the heal proc it, or if need be, CAST YOUR OWN HEALING SPELL.

But no your healing spell is a DPS loss from the lowest damage dealers in the game, so have the healers that do more damage than you do it.

Fine. Keep your Veil and have another reason to blame healers, like people don't have enough things to blame healers for. You'll all ready to throw a party if Clemency got deleted for your precious DPS but don't want to budge on Veil getting changed because that's would be putting the responsibility back in your corner. I'm not crazy here am I? If they decided to cut Clemancy(And bow to the DPS chasing meta we have) wouldn't it make sense to change Veil to reflect it because PLD can no longer, within their own kit, proc it?

---

Healers only start out damaging tanks, specifically pld at 99th percentile and above i.e. the percentiles where they are basically not playing as a healer anymore, someone mathed it out when the expansion dropped, its only a dps gain to use a clemency in a stituation where a whm would be forced to cast a cure 2 while the pld is in req, and even then its a very minor increase. I dont understand why youre so mad about veil, its basically always going to pop based off of healers natural play anyway, even if clemency is removed it would be nice to keep it as it currently is as rn you can cast veil early and healers will proc it naturally when its needed

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Really I would think the intended thing to do is either have the heal proc it, or if need be, CAST YOUR OWN HEALING SPELL.

But no your healing spell is a DPS loss from the lowest damage dealers in the game, so have the healers that do more damage than you do it.

Fine. Keep your Veil and have another reason to blame healers, like people don't have enough things to blame healers for. You'll all ready to throw a party if Clemency got deleted for your precious DPS but don't want to budge on Veil getting changed because that's would be putting the responsibility back in your corner. I'm not crazy here am I? If they decided to cut Clemancy(And bow to the DPS chasing meta we have) wouldn't it make sense to change Veil to reflect it because PLD can no longer, within their own kit, proc it?

---

What is with your attitude towards people recognising Clemency should only be used in case of emergency, or prog, not spammed the s*** out of the button till you are dry on mana. It's not down to "precious DPS". It's healers don't need scrub paladins spamming Clemency when they have so many POWERFUL healing tools available to them. So focus on doing your rotation and pay attention to what you have to do, not what the healer does.

Okay so Divine Veil, you keep talking like it's the end of the world s*** if the healer doesn't proc it. 90% of healers will know it is there, they spend most of their time look at HP bars, (not what tanks should be doing), and they will see Divine Veil active on the paladin. Now, a healer will say okay, I need that for x, and have y amount of second before I need to heal and proc veil, and will proc it in due course, OR the healer will say I don't need Divine Veil over the next 30-60 seconds, nor do I need to GCD heal for the next 30 seconds, so they will let it drop off the paladin, simple as that. (Of course it is worth noting, if a SCH is present, Eos / Selene will often times proc Divine Veil with Embrace.)

So in your misguided righteousness in the demand that Divine veil gets proc'd, you cast Clemency, and you've just wasted a GCD and 2000 mp for a shield your healer(s) do not need, worth?

Nope.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

SB TBN had feedback just not as a loop though and I thought it was fine back then.

---

I wouldn't call that a feedback loop. The general idea of a feedback loop is that you get more out of it than you put into it (i.e. the loop grows stronger) and the old SB TBN just kinda gave you back what you put into it, and even then it wasn't guaranteed thanks to how it provided on-global damage. The new ShB TBN - used appropriately of course - is a full-on gain compared to not using it. A more clear feedback loop using the old-style SB TBN would be if using the "free" 50 blood from a broken TBN also granted extra MP or something, with there essentially being an overall net gain in all situations instead of the case-by-case benefit it provided.

But I can see where the confusion comes from. I'll amend the original post for clarity.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Quor

I figured it was obvious (since SB TBN didn't have a feedback loop) but I'm referring to ShB TBN. Where it provides a free Edge or Flood via Dark Arts if the shield gets broken.

---

Stormblood TBN was a way better use for MP spending since if and when it broke you got a free Bloodspiller/Quietus out of it over using Dark Arts, but that's only if you knew when it would be break on either yourself or co-tank, whereas Shadowbringers TBN is pointless on break since you would have used that 3k MP for Edge/Flood of Shadow anyway, and I know someone might have some weird rotation where they can get 5 Edge of Shadows in with 5 Bloodspillers in an opener, but I would rather TBN give me a free Edge/Flood of Shadow use, 50 Blood gauge, AND reset Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit recast timers if it broke and just a free Edge/Flood of Shadow if it just fell off...

Also back on topic of the thread; enmity combos were a necessary evil, just like positionals bonuses/requirements are for melee DPS...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

Also back on topic of the thread; enmity combos were a necessary evil, just like positionals bonuses/requirements are for melee DPS...

---

Enmity management was an obvious mechanic to use for a role meant to divert enemy attention, just like making use of universal controls (i.e. WASD or left stick) to increase apm in standard gameplay was an obvious mechanic for jobs meant to be more apm-engaging and both provide and demand extreme mobility.

Neither implementation was necessary as such. Both could have gone other routes to achieve their ends.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Enmity management was an obvious mechanic to use for a role meant to divert enemy attention, just like making use of universal controls (i.e. WASD or left stick) to increase apm in standard gameplay was an obvious mechanic for jobs meant to be more apm-engaging and both provide and demand extreme mobility.

Neither implementation was necessary as such. Both could have gone other routes to achieve their ends.

---

So you are basically saying that you want to do away with positional bonuses/requirements on melee DPS...?

Because why cater to the midcore audience when you want to cater to hardcore audience but also cater to the casual audience...?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

So you are basically saying that you want to do away with positional bonuses/requirements on melee DPS...?

Because why cater to the midcore audience when you want to cater to hardcore audience but also cater to the casual audience...?

---

No. Weren't you just on the thread where I was defending positionals?

You used a term ("a necessary evil") that, in its context (their implementations, not their concepts), implied that systems cannot be refined, only reduced. I see otherwise. You can have the engagement of positioning and enmity without the frustrations owed specifically to how they were previously implemented.

Considering that thread was in general discussions instead of DPS role, it's no wonder I couldn't find it the thread again until you mentioned it existing and that you posted in it.

But you defend positionals, but you don't defend enmity combos...

I defend both positionals and enmity combos but apparently enmity combos is "not the hill to die on" so I won't feel sorry for melee DPS once positionals are outright removed along with True North...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

But you defend positionals, but you don't defend enmity combos...

I defend both positionals and enmity combos but apparently enmity combos is "not the hill to die on" so I won't feel sorry for melee DPS once positionals are outright removed along with True North...

---

You're strawmanning me yet again. I never said enmity mitigation, enmity GCD skills, or even enmity combos were a bad concept. I said that no single implementation is ever "necessary", and that no player should ever have to just sit in silence and deal with a poor implementation when it could be improved. The fact that so little were willing to engage in that discussion, treating it as "[precisely this implementation] or it's dead and gone" is why they're now dead and gone. I don't want to see the same happen to another concept with (even better) potential. And so, when I saw your claim, which I thought was both fundamentally wrong and destructive, I commented accordingly.

And let's be clear: "Audiences" -- be they casual, midcore, hardcore, veterans, new, smart, average, social, reclusive, or whatever else -- aren't perfectly packaged and inseparable sets of mutually exclusive characteristics. Find what few of those characteristics actually matter for a given implementation and you'll find things that are so commonly perceived as better design, among nearly all those groups, they they might as well be considered objectively better design. Stop reducing discussion as to how an ends can best be achieved (e.g. better implementations) to solely catering to X, Y, or Z. There's a place for discussing how changes might affect some more than others, but that should come only in compliment to a larger discussion of utility.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

Stormblood TBN was a way better use for MP spending since if and when it broke you got a free Bloodspiller/Quietus out of it over using Dark Arts, but that's only if you knew when it would be break on either yourself or co-tank, whereas Shadowbringers TBN is pointless on break since you would have used that 3k MP for Edge/Flood of Shadow anyway, and I know someone might have some weird rotation where they can get 5 Edge of Shadows in with 5 Bloodspillers in an opener, but I would rather TBN give me a free Edge/Flood of Shadow use, 50 Blood gauge, AND reset Abyssal Drain and Carve and Spit recast timers if it broke and just a free Edge/Flood of Shadow if it just fell off...

---

Oh no, it was not as simple as that, because the MP used for TBN in SB was the same as the MP used for DA, and DA was a flat 140 potency boost to most GCD skills DRK had. Given that DA functioned essentially as an oGCD potency boost, you can easily make the comparison that the 2400 MP for DA and TBN was equivalent to 140 potency on average. Since it applied to GCD skills, and getting a "free" BS meant adding an additional GCD skill into your rotation, you weren't actually getting the full potency from BS, you were simply raising your average ppGCD by a small amount. Mathed out over time, the potency gain from using BS via TBN instead of DA was largely a negligible one, and during certain snapshots would actually result in an absolute loss. I went over it in a thread some time ago during Stormblood and showed that while there are discrete moments where using a DA (assuming an MP neutral environment for the sake of calculation) would outpace BS via TBN, there were also discrete moments where using BS via TBN would outpace pure DA usage.

As it stands now, proper usage of TBN grants a strong shield on top of a raw 500 (or 300*X in aoe) if it breaks. This is pure potency gain because it's oGCD so there's no mucking about in the average ppGCD realm to drag actual damage gain down.

In regards to your other suggestions, sure, it would be nice if AB and CnS were reset on top of a "free" Bloodspiller, but that's just a bit too much. Practically speaking you'd be using AB and CnS about three times as often as you do now, which effectively amounts to at least a tripling of the damage gained from those attacks. While I think the core idea is a good one the target you're aiming for is a bit high. If tanks needed drastic buffs to damage I could get behind it, but balance is very tight (in a good way) right now. Anything that screws with said balance in such a drastic way is going in the wrong direction.

Conversely, all the tanks could be buffed in a similar fashion (and indeed, I hope they are to one degree or another, at least in terms of how the kits of each tank feeds back into itself) but that's a whole other ball of wax. Bottom line, I like the general idea, but it has flaws. Maybe instead of a full reset it provides something else that boosts the output of AB and CnS. The issue that would need to be avoided is ensuring that the optimal playstyle isn't to focus the job entirely on getting TBN to pop. While the feedback loop TBN provides is an interesting one in and of itself, there's still enough decision making involved such that using TBN exactly on CD isn't for the best. If too much power comes from TBN popping then the job starts to revolve around getting TBN to pop as often as possible, to the exclusion and detriment of everything else. It wouldn't be a choice to use TBN in this situation; you would want to get it on CD as fast as possible in an effort to get it to pop so you could unload another few big oGCD hits alongside an additional BS.

But anyway, like I said, I'm down with the core idea you're presenting.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

You're strawmanning me yet again. I never said enmity mitigation, enmity GCD skills, or even enmity combos were a bad concept. I said that no single implementation is ever "necessary", and that no player should ever have to just sit in silence and deal with a poor implementation when it could be improved. The fact that so little were willing to engage in that discussion, treating it as "[precisely this implementation] or it's dead and gone" is why they're now dead and gone. I don't want to see the same happen to another concept with (even better) potential. And so, when I saw your claim, which I thought was both fundamentally wrong and destructive, I commented accordingly.

And let's be clear: "Audiences" -- be they casual, midcore, hardcore, veterans, new, smart, average, social, reclusive, or whatever else -- aren't perfectly packaged and inseparable sets of mutually exclusive characteristics. Find what few of those characteristics actually matter for a given implementation and you'll find things that are so commonly perceived as better design, among nearly all those groups, they they might as well be considered objectively better design. Stop reducing discussion as to how an ends can best be achieved (e.g. better implementations) to solely catering to X, Y, or Z. There's a place for discussing how changes might affect some more than others, but that should come only in compliment to a larger discussion of utility.

---

If that's how you see it, then let it burn like World of Warcraft, because I'm honestly at the point where I don't care what happens after 6.0... I'll only stick around for 6.0 if battle changes are even worth praising or not...

Well, let us get back to the core of the matter: "Tanking feels unimportant".
From what I read, it is mainly felt because, notably, aggro management has become too easy...

WELL. LET US SUMMARIZE.
What is the role of a tank?

1 - Being the center of attention of their foes
2 - Being the HP pool of the team
3 - Protecting their allies
4 - Leading the group

Point one has become exceedingly easy to achieve nowadays. But is it truly so bad as a thing? I do not know...
I do not know, because it is the very base of the pyramid. And if people fail at it, all the group's progress through an instance is being compromised. Aside, that management was not THAT MUCH of an ordeal before neither, so making it even simpler is, to me, not so great of a loss.

... AT ONE CONDITION...

By taking out the part one from the challenge, they could focus more on the rest. And that, they seem to have pretty much forgotten it in the long run.
If they had put more emphasis on the other roles of a tank, notably "protecting their team", it could have given more edge to exploit to those willing to be perfect.
Some tools do ALREADY exist, though, and for all jobs: Pass of Arms, Shake It Off, Heart of Stone, Dark Missionary, and others...
Making it easier to hold hate allows you to put more thought into the use of this kind of actions. Assuming that you are willing to bother, of course.

As for leadership... Do remember that, for being the tank, you get to decide WHERE the fight occurs (unless you are stuck in an arena, and even so, where in that arena things are happening depends on you).
If you are bored with aggro generation, and do not want to bother with assisting your team (or perhaps are you already through with it?) work on your placement, remember that, regarding the composition of your team, the needs change. You do not have the same placement needs with a party made of melee fighters than with ranged ones (the latter generally meaning that you do not even have to think much about it, while, when I am being a melee, how many times have I found myself unable to do my positionnals because my tank does not grant me access to the foes' rear/leaves it in an AoE field...).

But whetever you may say, the TANKS are not unimportant. They remain one of the core elements of a team. And if they do their job wrongly, the others will have to pay the price.

My point in all this is...
I can understand the frustration of the enmity generation becoming easier. But instead of complaining, see it as an opportunity to focus on something else. Something more useful to your party.
There are ways. Well... more like hidden routes to it... But it is worth a try, don't you think?

Can't believe that part of this thread was someone straight up claiming Paladin's job is to self-proc Clemency every single time because healers do more damage at the 100th percentile when they don't heal at all. It's like people forget that aside from fflogs outliers any mechanic that calls for Veil usage will almost always also involve some kind of aoe healer shield or regen that will activate veil, because most raid scenarios aren't "both healers doing 100th percentile dps with 0 gcd heals ever used", which is one of extremely few scenarios where Paladin doing 0 damage gcds to save healer ones even makes sense.

Seems like tank damage could use a buff. I like where it was in Heavensward compared to the other roles.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nephyleem

Well, let us get back to the core of the matter: "Tanking feels unimportant".
From what I read, it is mainly felt because, notably, aggro management has become too easy...

WELL. LET US SUMMARIZE.
What is the role of a tank?

1 - Being the center of attention of their foes
2 - Being the HP pool of the team
3 - Protecting their allies
4 - Leading the group

Point one has become exceedingly easy to achieve nowadays. But is it truly so bad as a thing? I do not know...
I do not know, because it is the very base of the pyramid. And if people fail at it, all the group's progress through an instance is being compromised. Aside, that management was not THAT MUCH of an ordeal before neither, so making it even simpler is, to me, not so great of a loss.

... AT ONE CONDITION...

By taking out the part one from the challenge, they could focus more on the rest. And that, they seem to have pretty much forgotten it in the long run.
If they had put more emphasis on the other roles of a tank, notably "protecting their team", it could have given more edge to exploit to those willing to be perfect.
Some tools do ALREADY exist, though, and for all jobs: Pass of Arms, Shake It Off, Heart of Stone, Dark Missionary, and others...
Making it easier to hold hate allows you to put more thought into the use of this kind of actions. Assuming that you are willing to bother, of course.

As for leadership... Do remember that, for being the tank, you get to decide WHERE the fight occurs (unless you are stuck in an arena, and even so, where in that arena things are happening depends on you).
If you are bored with aggro generation, and do not want to bother with assisting your team (or perhaps are you already through with it?) work on your placement, remember that, regarding the composition of your team, the needs change. You do not have the same placement needs with a party made of melee fighters than with ranged ones (the latter generally meaning that you do not even have to think much about it, while, when I am being a melee, how many times have I found myself unable to do my positionnals because my tank does not grant me access to the foes' rear/leaves it in an AoE field...).

But whetever you may say, the TANKS are not unimportant. They remain one of the core elements of a team. And if they do their job wrongly, the others will have to pay the price.

My point in all this is...
I can understand the frustration of the enmity generation becoming easier. But instead of complaining, see it as an opportunity to focus on something else. Something more useful to your party.
There are ways. Well... more like hidden routes to it... But it is worth a try, don't you think?

---

Thing is i see with tanks, they lost a lot of responsiblity, tank stances got changed so they not care for it anymore due damage output stays the same, same for damage reduction now, no positoning anymore due you can block and parry from all sides now, now most tanks i see not bother to turn around or positon the adds or boss right anymore.

CD's removed or changed, most has the healer to deal with now. PLD once king of CD has like 2-3 CD left and it feels painful as main PLD myself and i can see why other Tanks barely bother now. Tankign became ot easy i say, ntohing against simplifying thigns but the recent changes maked things brain dead at times and i can see why Tanks and Healers both complain here.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Saix027

CD's removed or changed, most has the healer to deal with now. PLD once king of CD has like 2-3 CD left and it feels painful as main PLD myself and i can see why other Tanks barely bother now. Tankign became ot easy i say, ntohing against simplifying thigns but the recent changes maked things brain dead at times and i can see why Tanks and Healers both complain here.

---

The changes made playing a tank brain dead, at least to me. However at the start of the expansion this was countered by how hard the new waves of enemies hit and how unexpected that was. With gear and practice this becomes less and less of a problem and thus becomes more and more boring to the classes that deal with getting hit.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DRKoftheAzure

If that's how you see it, then let it burn like World of Warcraft, because I'm honestly at the point where I don't care what happens after 6.0... I'll only stick around for 6.0 if battle changes are even worth praising or not...

---

...What do any of these things have to do with each other?

"Let enmity manipulation burn like WoW because <I have perfectly normal standards>" ???

Where is the connection between your previous responses and this? How do those lead to... that?

I get the "XIV shouldn't shortsightedly pander to X, Y, or Z, or else the rug is pulled out from beneath the game and things start to crumble." I agree with it. I just don't agree that there are no intermediate and more productive steps between a particular implementation and its removal. I believe improvements (especially to such rough, barebone systems as are the norm in this game) are possible.

I get the implication that you want to see significant changes away from the reduced state we now find in the game in. I do as well. I just don't think it'll come from the same short-sighted sledge-over-scalpel work that removed enmity combos.

And, for what it's worth, that's probably a good quarter of players at this point who'd be leaving if there are no improvements to combat.

...But what does any of that have to do with WoW burning (especially given that it's currently in the middle of de-pruning itself, listening to its player-base --at least compared to many other periods of its history, and certainly compared to XIV-- and taking less short-sighted views of its development? You're going like 1, 3, 5, 786 here.

Is it just "WoW is bad" bait again, or... you just really don't like actually participating in the discussion for fixing the game, only in complaining when no one else does it...? I don't get it.

I was only subbed to Stormblood for a short period of time I hated the combat changes so much. I was really unhappy with what they did to DRK.

I just came back now and am considering another long absence until they sort this out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

...What do any of these things have to do with each other?

"Let enmity manipulation burn like WoW because <I have perfectly normal standards>" ???

Where is the connection between your previous responses and this? How do those lead to... that?

I get the "XIV shouldn't shortsightedly pander to X, Y, or Z, or else the rug is pulled out from beneath the game and things start to crumble." I agree with it. I just don't agree that there are no intermediate and more productive steps between a particular implementation and its removal. I believe improvements (especially to such rough, barebone systems as are the norm in this game) are possible.

I get the implication that you want to see significant changes away from the reduced state we now find in the game in. I do as well. I just don't think it'll come from the same short-sighted sledge-over-scalpel work that removed enmity combos.

And, for what it's worth, that's probably a good quarter of players at this point who'd be leaving if there are no improvements to combat.

...But what does any of that have to do with WoW burning (especially given that it's currently in the middle of de-pruning itself, listening to its player-base --at least compared to many other periods of its history, and certainly compared to XIV-- and taking less short-sighted views of its development? You're going like 1, 3, 5, 786 here.

Is it just "WoW is bad" bait again, or... you just really don't like actually participating in the discussion for fixing the game, only in complaining when no one else does it...? I don't get it.

---

I was talking about FF14 in general, which okay, I understand the confusion...

As for WoW finally getting the de-pruning, Activision is only allowing Blizzard to do it, because apparently the Chinese money wasn't as profitable as they would have liked it to be once the Chinese government got involved and pissed off many westerners as a result, and Square-Enix is only going to allow good balance changes when the casualisation is going to cause the company to bleed money left and right and it affects their bottom line.

And the only reason Disney is asking George Lucas to come back to Star Wars is because of the bad decisions Disney made with the franchise. While I'm on topic Star Wars; prequel movies are underrated.

At the end of the day it boils down to poor management, and the only people that get punished are the people that made the franchises and companies into what they were before some idiot got in control of management because he/she/they wanted more money and didn't care who got hurt or in the way so long as they get more money. Just look at Konami as an example.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Falar

I was only subbed to Stormblood for a short period of time I hated the combat changes so much. I was really unhappy with what they did to DRK.

I just came back now and am considering another long absence until they sort this out.

---

I've been out for a while now. I hope they do something good for Wars and tanks im general for 5.2, because I really hate it right now. Infuriate/ic mechanic is just not fun to me. And nf with party member restriction is awful. I'd gladly trade ic and nf to get old ib and steel cyclone back. If nothing is done in 5.2, that's it for me this xpac...

If is wasn't bcs my static and my house i would probably leaving the Game until 6.0 too, with the DRK being a WAR clone and the whole kit being carried by the busted TBN + the decadence of the combat system specially on tanks and healers there is not much fun left -.-

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by shao32

If is wasn't bcs my static and my house i would probably leaving the Game until 6.0 too, with the DRK being a WAR clone and the whole kit being carried by the busted TBN + the decadence of the combat system specially on tanks and healers there is not much fun left -.-

---

I never liked healing very much, except maybe resto druid back in the day in wow, but HW Sch was the most fun I had with a healing class ever. Made me strongly consider maining heals... Now it's so... bland = * (

The simplification of the kits in addition to the ability pruning and broken potencies become glaringly obvious once you go back to old 3.0/4.0 content. those fights get cleared so fast now that you don't even see half of the mechanics the bosses do anymore (brute justice prime example of this!)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by NyneSwordz

I never liked healing very much, except maybe resto druid back in the day in wow, but HW Sch was the most fun I had with a healing class ever. Made me strongly consider maining heals... Now it's so... bland = * (

---

Healing wasn't my fav role either but at least in the past was indeed way more fun, same as tanking, now im only tanking for savage and thats It, i preffer play more engaging and complex jobs for everything else, basicaly the dps to dont fall sleep and feel way more rewarding for playing properly that half of the tanks

Because it is unimportant.

There's no value in being a tanky tank because damage is king, so you end up slotting any and everything that gives you BIG NUMBARZ and basically become a watered down DPS that has a couple more damage reduction cooldowns.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MerlinCross

Really I would think the intended thing to do is either have the heal proc it, or if need be, CAST YOUR OWN HEALING SPELL.

But no your healing spell is a DPS loss from the lowest damage dealers in the game, so have the healers that do more damage than you do it.

Fine. Keep your Veil and have another reason to blame healers, like people don't have enough things to blame healers for. You'll all ready to throw a party if Clemency got deleted for your precious DPS but don't want to budge on Veil getting changed because that's would be putting the responsibility back in your corner. I'm not crazy here am I? If they decided to cut Clemancy(And bow to the DPS chasing meta we have) wouldn't it make sense to change Veil to reflect it because PLD can no longer, within their own kit, proc it?

---

Bro... if I have to pop clemency to proc veil, you've failed as a healer, full stop. You have THIRTY SECONDS to cast a GCD heal to proc it for incoming raid damage. One of you is a shield healer. That shield will proc it.

And no, most healers do LESS than I do on tank. The chad healers that don't heal do, but their team suffers for it. The ONLY time I will consider clem to proc it is if there is down time and it doesn't matter anyway since I'll get the MP back, or it's enough time to get MP for Req at the beginning of the fight.